Communication networks have developed and advanced significantly over the years. At one time, only circuit switching networks were employed to connect telephone or telegraph communication devices. With the advent of the Internet and other packet-based networks, communication technologies have evolved to utilize packet-based communication techniques. Communications that utilize packets of data rather than traditional analog technologies offer users new features and options never before available. For example, packet-based communication technologies allow information data to be sent along with the actual voice data. This feature allows communication devices to employ advanced communication protocols thereby making the communication session more enjoyable to the user.
Unfortunately, with the advent of new technologies comes a new set of problems. When a communication connection, such as a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) connection, experiences voice quality problems it is often useful for a technician to know something about the type of quality problem so that the source of the problem can be more readily identified. The problem may be reported either by one of the conversation's participants or by an automated mechanism that monitors the quality of service (QoS) associated with the voice connection. The types of communication problems inherent in packet-based communication networks include delay, jitter, packet-loss, and out-of-order packets. Each of these problems may have a different cause and different combinations of these problems may have other causes. For example, some of these particular problems may be precipitated by faulty hardware in the communication network, whereas other problems may originate from software issues.
When such communication problems arise, a recording tool is often used to save a small portion of the conversation for later analysis. The saved sample of speech allows a network administrator to listen to the actual conversation and gain a more detailed picture of the problem. This can help the network administrator understand why the user might be unhappy as well as identify possible sources of the problem.
One downside to these current recording techniques is that such saved conversation fragments may include pieces of conversations that users do not want being heard by network administrators and other technicians. The reasons for desiring this privacy may range from personal reasons to security reasons. Additionally, some recorded conversation samples may be misleading to a technician if they have background noise that makes it difficult for the technician to pick out the real quality problems in the conversation. Another downside to current troubleshooting techniques is that storing the speech samples can be an expensive proposition, especially on large networks where many speech samples are being recorded.